Since 2018 we’ve been studying the load carrying properties of mineral oils, PAO’S, PAG’s, diesters, trimellitate esters, polyols, crop oils, blown and stand oils and estolides. Additive free. Whereas most companies would run a bench test, we wanted something more realistic. So we’ve been testing fluids using the FZG gear test at the Technical University of Munich. We’re hooked. The tests are expensive, but reflect realistic conditions.   Certainly useful data to have when formulating.  We’ve tested 30+ fluids of all types.  Base oil SN150 and PAO 6 failed load stage 4. Confirming why anti-wear additives are needed in many base fluids.  However, we found two natural products that failed load stage 12 – additive free.  We’re using these data to design a range of new esters with inherently high load carrying properties enabling formulators to reduce the S/P additive charge in products.